An auditory Stroop effect with judgments of speaker gender

A series of “auditory Stroop” experiments is described. These demonstrate an effect of stimulus words presented on speed of judgments of speaker gender and, conversely, an influence of speaker gender on judgments of words presented. In an experiment in which responses to speaker gender were semantically related to, but not identical with, stimulus words, the auditory Stroop effect was attenuated but remained in evidence. Potential parallels between this auditory paradigm and the visual Stroop color/word effect are explored, and it is suggested that the Stroop effects in the two modalities operate along broadly similar lines. The search for a common causal mechanism would therefore be justified.